Orange Township trustees hold off challengers

Wednesday

Nov 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMNov 6, 2013 at 10:13 AM

DELAWARE, Ohio - Trustees in one of Delaware County's fastest-growing townships appeared to keep their seats today. Voters overwhelmingly chose to keep Orange Township Trustees Robert Quigley and Debbie Taranto in office yesterday. Both had run against challengers who promised lower taxes and limiting government waste.

Laura Arenschield, The Columbus Dispatch

DELAWARE, Ohio — Trustees in one of Delaware County’s fastest-growing townships appeared to keep their seats yesterday.

Voters overwhelmingly chose to keep Orange Township Trustees Robert Quigley and Debbie Taranto in office yesterday. Both had run against challengers who promised lower taxes and limiting government waste.

Quigley kept his seat by receiving 38 percent of the votes, according to incomplete returns yesterday from the count Board of Elections. Taranto kept hers with 42 percent.

Taranto said she thinks township voters trusted the incumbents’ records.

“I think they know me and Rob’s character and how much we care about Orange Township and that we do work very hard, and I really do think that’s what it came down to,” she said.

Challenger Bob Ruhlman, who ran on pledges to cut taxes in the township, said he was concerned that more people hadn’t gone to the polls.

Voter turnout in Delaware County was, with 125 of 143 precincts reporting, less than 25 percent.

“I’m not saying that the results would have been any different, but it just proves that locally and nationally, people just don’t care about the issues unless it impacts them,” said Ruhlman, who was in third place, with just more than 11 percent of the vote.

Ruhlman said he will continue to be a voice about Orange Township issues.

The township is the most-populated in Delaware County, with about 24,000 residents, and has in the past few years been a place of some discord. A female firefighter sued the township and her supervisor in 2010, saying she had been harassed and fired because of her gender.

A jury later agreed, awarding her more than $1.7 million. The township settled for $875,000.

Last November, voters shot down a levy to fund the township’s fire department. The trustees placed an emergency levy on the ballot in February. The levy passed, but critics said the issue should have been left to the November election, when voter turnout is higher.

The trustees frequently argue, with Quigley and Taranto on one side and the third trustee, Lisa Knapp, on the other.